limits
by deceptivelycomplex3925
Summary: Set a little bit after Robin's death. This won't be updated regularly, it's just something that wouldn't leave my mind so I had to write it down.
1. Chapter 1

_**I wrote this for a friend. Really, I was only supposed to help kick-start her own imagination for her own fic but I kind of got a little carried away.**_

 _ ***shrugs***_

 _ **As always, I write when I'm half-coherent so I apologize to those of you who are going to read this before I properly edit it. "Why not just wait to post it tomorrow after you've done that?" Obviously because that would be too logical.**_

* * *

"What are _you_ doing here?"

She's bent at the knees, the backs of her thighs resting on the backs of her calves, the olive-toned muscle there flexing as she reaches, in uncoordinated, sluggish movements, for the broken pieces of glass strewn across wood now stained with a small puddle of amber liquid.

Emma reaches for her wrist, stops her. "You're going to cut yourself," she murmurs.

Regina snorts, loudly, red-rimmed, hazy brown eyes flitting over her features before she stands, hand flying out to press a palm into the wall as she sways a bit. Emma's hand shoots to hover at her lower back, where the zipper of her dress kisses cerulean fabric. She feels the coolness of the metal, the heat of Regina's skin beneath.

"Wouldn't be the first time," she hears Regina mutter darkly. It stuns Emma into silence, eyes just blinking, hand still outstretched where Regina's back had been.

She hears clanging seconds later and moves to see the brunette rummaging in her cabinets, on her tiptoes - she's barefoot - the muscles in her arm straining and looking so unfairly elegant under the dim lighting of the kitchen.

When a hand comes back full with a bottle of whiskey, Emma moves quickly, taking it from shaking fingers and setting it on the counter next to the sink. She shifts so her body is in between Regina and the alcohol. Regina clumsily - and when has this woman _ever_ been so _clumsy_? reaches for it anyway. Always pushing, even like this.

"Regina," Emma says, bowing her head a little to catch her eyes. Her hand hovers over Regina's right hip. "How much have you had to drink?" She whispers softly, feeling as if speaking too loudly would hurt the other woman's head.

She gets a scathing glare in return, eyes a molten caramel. "I don't need you to take care of me, Miss Swan. I know my limits."

"You sure?" Emma arches a brow.

The glare turns murderous. Emma thinks she might have felt a frisson of fear had it not been for the evidence of shed tears, lots and lots of them, still lingering on thick, dark lashes. Had it not been for the ones forming now. Ones she's sure Regina is trying very hard not to let fall.

She can see it in the fist at her side, the flexing of her jaw, the unwavering glower.

The brunette turns then. Walks out of the kitchen, bare feet padding gently. Emma can do nothing but follow her. She stops when Regina opens the front door, eyes piercing, piercing, piercing.

But raw. Here, tonight, Regina's walls are not so unyielding. Here, tonight, they're flimsy, groaning. A breath away from toppling and crumbling, mere rubble at her bare feet.

"If you would, Miss Swan."

Emma takes a step back, shaking her head.

"No."

Regina growls, hand tightening on the door frame. "I distinctly remember a scene just like this where you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't care for a repeat performance. _Please_ ," she grinds out, "leave."

"And I distinctly remember a scene where you told me I've never had your back. You don't need to be alone right now. I'm not leaving."

There's another one of those snorts. "Invading my privacy _and_ refusing to leave me alone after I've asked? Twice? Someone's been hanging off the pirate's arm for far too long."

Emma's cheek twitches, red heat lashing at the back of her neck but she doesn't comment. She just holds her ground.

Regina's smile, that one she uses when she's delivering her caustic, meant-to-sting - or piss off whoever was on the receiving end - comments, falls off her face, in its place that baleful glare again. It sustains for a few more seconds before she inhales deeply and shuts the door, walking toward the kitchen before coming back with the alcohol in hand. Emma moves to speak but

Regina holds up a hand, taking an alarmingly large swig of the whiskey straight from the bottle.

"If you won't leave, fine. But I'm drinking this entire damned bottle of whiskey, Emma, and you're not going to stop me, alright?"

Emma grinds her back teeth, nostrils flaring. But she concedes. Maybe after a few more swallows Regina will be too drunk to hold the bottle and Emma can sneak it away from her. She nods.

"Fine."

They don't talk. They don't look at each other. Emma sits on the floor in front of the fire while Regina stays on the couch, legs tucked up underneath her.

Emma tries several times to think up something to say to her, something that might help her, make her smile. She tries to think of menial small talk, knowing Regina needs a distraction more than anything right now.

But all she can think of is _I'm sorry_. All she can feel on her tongue is those two words. So meaningless in such a large house. So insignificant next to a woman very much the opposite.

She can't say she's sorry because she knows it's the last thing Regina wants to hear. Everyone's _sorry_. That's all anyone is these days.

Sorry that someone has died. Her true love. Her _soulmate_.

A father. A friend.

And it's her fault. She was selfish before his death and she's being selfish now, after it.

Shouldering full blame for a life taken, a soul. _This is the second person who's been killed because of you_ , something slithering, like green silk, whispers in her mind.

But it wasn't just any life, was it? No. This was supposed to be Regina's _happiness_. Her happy ending. And Emma knows, she _knows_ how many times it's been ripped away from this woman. The mother of her child. Someone she used to hate but now doesn't, _can't_.

Someone who doesn't deserve half of what life has thrown at her. Someone who cast a curse on hundreds of innocent people but also had to watch her mother, her own flesh and blood, crush the heart of her first love right in front of her. Someone who has taken many lives of her own but has also been beaten and tortured, lied to, used countless times. Someone who's never known free will, someone who, much like herself, has been strung up like some animative doll, held together by strings - wrapped around the sinewy fingers of an omnipresent being. Something much larger than flesh and bone. _Fate_.

Emma hated that word. She fucking _loathed_ it.

"Emma."

She jerks her head up at the sound, uttered softly, so softly.

"I can hear you thinking from up here."

Emma blinks, rubs at her forehead. "Sorry."

The bottle of whiskey is half full, resting in Regina's lap.

"Don't be. I was running a bet with myself on how long it would take you to break this stifling, awkward silence." She takes a small sip from the bottle. "I have to say I'm impressed. Twenty minutes."

Emma laughs, a breathy little sound. Her face feels flushed from the warmth of the fire.

"To be honest, I almost broke a few times in the first minute or so."

Regina hums and draws a lazy finger around the lip of the bottle. "So what were you thinking about?" Her voice is scratchy from the alcohol, a few octaves lower than it usually is and Emma's a little disoriented from it.

"Oh," she scratches at her cheek, "I was just…"

"You were trying to figure out a way to say you're sorry without actually _saying_ you're sorry. You were trying not to mention him, say his name, bring him up in any way shape or form."

Dark eyes latch onto hers and it burns Emma, makes her feel like hunching in on herself, makes her feel so, so small.

"I'm sorry," Emma breathes, a knee jerk reaction. The entirely _wrong_ reaction.

Regina _trembles_ , her knuckles straining white with her hold on the bottle.

"About _what_ exactly?" Regina whispers cuttingly, eyes a storm, ever challenging.

Emma feels thorns in her belly, tries to swallow but it sticks in her throat. She clenches and unclenches her palm.

"I should go." She gets up on her feet, knees like jello, feeling so wrong all of a sudden being inside of Regina's home. She wonders if Robin had stayed the night here. Wonders exactly how many times he had been in this house. With her. With Henry as well.

She wonders if he'd sat in this exact spot, right by the fire.

She feels like she's going to be sick. She brings tremulous fingers up to her lips and is just passing the couch when a warm hand shoots out and wraps around the wrist at her side. It's not gentle.

"Say it."

Emma's eyes are on the foyer, mind thinking up how many steps it would take her to get to the door.

The hand at her wrist tightens. Her eyes tip down.

" _Say it_ ," Regina says again, imperious and hoarse and a little broken.

Dark eyes, pupils blown out, hold her own, render her motionless. Her breath catches and she feels her hand start to throb from the lack of blood circulation.

"What do you want me to say, Regina?" She's careful with the question, tentative.

"Whatever it is that brought you to my doorstep to begin with. What _everyone_ has been saying to me. What everyone _feels_."

The words are dripping with rancor, almost a hiss.

Emma sucks in a sharp breath, flexes her hand. Regina notices the motion and jolts a little, her fingers falling away as if burned.

"I'm not my parents. I'm not anyone else in this town."

Regina's eyes find hers again, the rage in them tempered briefly. Now they're just murky, swirling with so many emotions and so quickly that Emma can't parse them all.

"No you're not," Regina echoes.

"I'm sorry," Emma finally breaks, "I am so, _so_ sorry about what happened to Robin." The sharp inhale skewers Emma, trips up her heart a bit. Regina breaks the eye contact between them, dips her head. "He was a good man, Regina, and I'm so sorry he was taken like this."

Emma's chin wobbles as she says it, eyes tracing the soft slopes of Regina's shoulders as they quake, her fingers loosening their hold around the bottle of whiskey.

Emma moves around the couch, kneeling and taking it from her, setting it on the table. She cradles Regina's hands in her own and smooths her thumbs over the tops of her knuckles, wishing with everything inside of her that she could reach inside of this woman and take out all of her pain, swallow it up and make it her own to bear.

"Regina, I'm - "

"Then help me."

Emma's brow furrows. "What?"

Wet, dark eyes tip up to meet her own. "Help me," she rasps again, her fingers lacing through Emma's and tugging a bit. Emma looks between the both of their hands and feels her body complying with the movement, a second later on the couch next to Regina, their thighs - Regina's bare from her dress and Emma's covered by her jeans - pressed together.

Emma sputters when Regina's fingers then untangle from her own and smooth palms flatten and slide up her forearms. "Regina, what - "

There are tears flowing freely and steadily down olive-toned cheeks, wet eyelashes fluttering as fingers squeeze at the toned flesh of Emma's biceps. "You'd do anything to help me get rid of my pain wouldn't you, Em-ma?"

Emma spasms beneath her hands, now gliding over the tops of her shoulders, catching the fabric of her cotton tee and sliding it up a bit. Her eyes flutter closed, mouth parting ever so slightly. She exhales shakily.

"You feel responsible, I know you do. It's in your nature. The _savior_. Always having to _save_ everyone. Always with the self-inflicted flagellation." Fingers brush over her clavicles, dip in the v of her shirt. "You're carrying so much guilt, guilt that isn't yours to have." Those fingers quest higher, sift through her hair, up, up until they find the elastic band of her ponytail and undo it. Emma can't help the soft moan that bubbles up and slips past her lips. "But for tonight I think I'll let you take it. Tonight, I'm asking you to." The fingers fall away then, instantly and without warning. Emma sways forward. "Will you?"

And then her eyes snap open, her brain finally having cognized what Regina is saying.

She leans away, a jerky action, scooting back a bit on the couch. "I'm not - I'm not going to take advantage of y - _jesus_ , you've had _how_ much to drink tonight?"

Regina bridges the distance between them, nails raking a path up her thighs, leaving a lighter blue trail of denim in their wake. Emma's back bows.

"It's not taking advantage when I'm asking for it," Regina says with an eye roll. "And I've told you, I know my limits. I'm coherent. I know what I'm asking of you."

Emma balks. She's not - how _could_ she ask this of her?

"You're asking me to _sleep_ with you," Emma says, trying to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

She fails a little bit.

Regina, though, doesn't falter. Goosebumps travel up Emma's lower back as those nails turn into the pads of fingers, massaging now, inching higher with every slow circle. Her breath becomes more shallow, her heart thumping away far too quickly in her chest.

"Yes," Regina purrs.

Emma, for her part, clutches the back of the couch, her own nails digging into the cushion. She swallows roughly before attempting words. Two fingers hook in her belt loops.

"And you...you think this will help with your, with your - " there's a sharp tug and Emma's body vaults forward, her hands landing on Regina's hips for any semblance of balance. Emma gasps. Loudly. "Pain," she finishes on a choked exhale.

Fingers slide over her hips, up under her shirt, and guide her, slipping down and curving over the slope of her backside - Emma lets out a soft 'ah' at this - before wrapping around the back of her thigh and lifting it so that she is now effectively straddling the older woman. When her hand travels back up its previous path she gives an impromptu squeeze and Emma's own hands shoot to the back of the couch on either side of the brunette's head. Her head falls forward and she bites back a moan.

She hears a throaty chuckle. "I confess that I've been wanting to do that for quite some time."

Emma is...well, Emma's freaked the fuck out, her body moving on autopilot now, all of her sensations in overdrive. But there's something just in the back of all the chaos. Something entirely calm, drifting idly. It feels...familiar. It feels...satisfied. Like a yearning finally sated.

In the midst of Regina's eager and slightly sloppy fingers, she finds herself utterly confused.

Enough so that it has her pulling away abruptly.

"Wa - woah. Just." She closes her eyes and swallows, sitting back on Regina's thighs and running her hands through her hair. "This is... _god_ , this is so fucked up."

Thumbs make circles along the tops of her own thighs. "Well, we aren't each other's true love...we're barely even anything, so it doesn't really matter how unhealthy it is, does it?"

Emma kind of jolts in her lap, blinking, blinking. Regina's eyes are dull, gazing back at her with this palpable pain. Something inside of Emma aches to alleviate it, her body almost pulsating with the need.

She twists off Regina instead.

"Regina, you may not remember this tomorrow but I will," Emma starts, pacing. "And I'm...no matter what we are to each other…" she stops short, dread tugging at her insides, "there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed."

She turns and catches Regina's eyes; her mouth parts, like she wants to respond.

It's in this moment that Emma decides to be far too honest.

"It would give light to some things that neither one of us can probably handle. Definitely not now." She finishes in a breath, taking a step toward Regina, a compulsion she can't abate.

"Come on, I'll help you upstairs."

She holds out her hand.

Regina looks at it for a long moment before she takes it, fingers constricting as Emma pulls her up.

She slings Regina's arm around her shoulders and only hesitates for a second before wrapping her other arm around her waist.

They almost topple forward that first step of the stairs but Regina's hand catches the railing before they do. Emma's arm tightens around her waist. Regina's fingers tangle up in some of the loose curls of her hair.

They're just at the top of the stairs now. "You deserve better than Hook," Regina murmurs softly, almost too softly - Emma almost doesn't hear it.

She pretends she didn't.

She helps Regina into bed, pulls back the covers - silk, blue. There's an almost overwhelming waft of vanilla and something...clean. Regina just smells _clean_.

It reminds Emma of one of the very few good homes she'd been in. One in particular where every night in that house she'd take a bath and use the body soap as her bubbles. She'd cup some of the water in her hand and let it glide down her body like mini waterfalls. In those twenty minutes, those solitary, _allotted_ minutes, she felt safe. Free from all of the ghosts dripping tar on her skin. _Clean_.

"Thank you," Regina whispers as Emma turns to leave. Fingers reach up to trail over the top of her jeans, a belt loop.

"For what?" Emma asks, voice just as low.

Dark eyes tip up, emotion - so much _emotion_. Emma feels it slam into her gut. Right where Regina's fingers are.

"For staying." The fingers fall away and Regina rolls over, giving her back.

Emma doesn't move for a few seconds, takes in a quiet breath, turns and walks out of her room.

Closes the door gently behind her.

When she's inside the bug in Regina's driveway she realizes what that something was. That yearning.

" _Fuck_."

Her forehead thunks against the wheel.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Listen, I really WAS going to write another chapter for 'a mistake' and then tHIS happened. I don't even know what this is and it's really stilted and blah but whatever. It just feels so good to have finally written more than 500 words in one sitting. I know how fucking frustrating it is to have a writer continually not update a fic you've been wanting to read for ages but I can't describe to you how hard it's been for me these past months to dredge up the motivation to write even a few sentences. I just hope this spurt of it sticks.**_

 _ **As always, you people are lovely and inspiring and I adore you and I hope I can one day finish things wITH happy endings so I don't continuously batter you with angst.**_

 _ **Also, I've wanted Zelena/Emma banter for ages and this is my way of getting it.**_

 _ **Oh, and if the timeline in this isn't correct, be kind and disregard it? I barely got through season five. The beards made it almost unbearable to watch so I've only seen each episode once - and during a good portion of them I was only half attentive.**_

 _ **Also, also. Mia Elizabeth is the baby's name. Because I thought it up and I'm quite attached to it.**_

* * *

When Emma wakes the next morning, she's already come to the decision that she is going to forget about last night. She's going to completely etch it out of her mind. Killian will never find out and she's never going to bring it up to Regina. Ever.

She's resolute.

So when she walks into Granny's, calm and intent on ordering the grande of all coffees, she doesn't falter in her steps when she sees Regina in the corner booth. She most certainly doesn't bang her booted toes on a metal chair.

Except she does and it makes one hell of a loud screech as it scrapes against the tile and she winces as every pair of eyes in the diner shoots up. Including Regina's. Emma doesn't lift her head, just curses under her breath, cheeks burning, as she lifts the chair back up under one of the tables.

"Quite an entrance there, kiddo."

Emma glares at the white-haired woman as she slides into one of the stools of the bar, folding her arms. "All of your coffee. Give it to me."

Granny chuckles, rough and highly amused, and Emma just snatches a napkin out of the bin and starts to tear at it, corners first.

"For a Charming, you're a rather cowardly lion."

Emma jolts, head snapping to her left as Zelena slowly lifts herself up onto the stool adjacent to her. She has Mia in her arms, wrapped up in a pale pink blanket. Her hair is down, soft curls tickling at Mia's face.

Emma's heart turns to absolute mush at the sight of her tiny, wrinkled nose and has to force herself to scowl, offense coming to her as an afterthought.

"Would you like a gold star for that cheesy movie reference?"

"Oh, please," she scoffs as she rocks baby Mia in her arms gently, "I have more grace and conviction in my left pinkie finger than that simpleton, cackling oaf did in that horrible film."

Despite herself, Emma almost chokes on a laugh, having been given her cup of coffee and taken a long gulp of it.

Zelena snickers, eyes alight with amusement, an added gentleness to the lines around her eyes now as she dips her head and coos softly to a stirring Mia.

Emma can't help herself; she reaches out a hand and traces a gentle finger down the slope of Mia's nose, a small smile of wonder on her lips, a distinct tug at her belly at the sight of such a raw display of innocence, a human life at the tips of her fingers. Mia screws her face up and it reminds her so much of Henry as a baby (in memories not her own, memories given to her as a gift) that she lets out a stunned breath, caught between a laugh and a gasp.

Zelena smiles as she watches Emma's fingers venture carefully over gossamer skin. There's a beat of silence, and then another until it's broken, words spoken so quietly and tenderly that it takes Emma a second to fully cognize that they've come from Zelena herself.

"How long have you two been ignoring it?"

Emma, heart thumping and ever stubborn, replies with, "Ignoring what?"

Zelena gives her a look, one she's seen on Regina countless times before – it doesn't hold quite the same weight as Regina's does, hers comes with five years of memories, of knowledge. Zelena's just makes her feel exposed, makes her feel like maybe she's not quite as good at coming off as unaffected as she'd thought.

"I bet Regina finds that positively adorable." She tilts her head, studying Emma's features as if she's trying to understand every line and curve. "I suppose I do see the appeal. My sister hasn't always had the best taste, you know."

Emma blinks over at her, bristling in true offense, anger swelling up inside her throat at the crudeness. Perhaps some things were harder to curb. But she guesses the Mills sisters always have had a penchant for sarcastic quips. "Her soulmate died less than a week ago and you're cracking jokes about her _taste_?"

Zelena gives an overdramatic roll of her eyes, shifting Mia higher up into her arms and brushing the backs of her knuckles across wisps of strawberry tinged hair. "Oh, calm down. I'd hardly be so irreverent in _front_ of her. I was only making a point."

Emma balks, eyebrows rising. "Which would be…?"

"That you and my sister have been dancing around your feelings for one another for far too long and whatever's happened recently has only made it that much harder for you to overlook it."

Emma's face burns, feeling like a specimen under a microscope. She tries not to squirm, to give any more fodder to Zelena's razor sharp astuteness. She looks down at the coffee cup in her hands, thumbing at the lip of it. "How do you know that 'something's happened recently'?"

Zelena gives a soft snort, careful not to wake a now soundly sleeping Mia. "Because I'm not an idiot and you're not at all subtle."

Emma scrunches up her face, attempts a dirty look.

Zelena tuts, hand reaching out to knock a knuckle underneath her chin. Emma jerks away, irritated and cheeks aflame. "So cute," she chuckles. Emma gives her a baleful glare. Zelena gives an outright laugh, full-bodied and annoyingly pretty; it rubs at Emma like sandpaper.

"My, my," Zelena says, laughter lingering in her words as she soothes Mia, the sudden sound having woke her, "how ever does my sister resist _that_ caliber of sulking?"

Emma straightens her shoulders, brow corrugating even further without her permission, "I am _not_ sulking."

Zelena presses her lips together and Emma's about to go in full-on defensive mode just as another party joins them, moving right into the space between her and Zelena.

"Having a lovely conversation, are we?" It's said tersely, one of those practiced politician smiles painted across plum lips.

Even though the dark eyes landed on her, Zelena, of course, is the quickest to respond. "Well, we were until you interrupted it, yes."

Regina just rolls her eyes, like she's actually the eldest of the two. Emma ducks, nose nearly pressed into her cup, shoulders hunching, hoping if she makes herself small enough Regina will leave her be. "Emma, a word?" Well, damn it.

Regina lets her fingers trail along the bottom of a socked foot before making her way to the back of Granny's, heels clicking with each step. Emma just stares after her, eyes moving from her cup to Regina's back.

"Looks like someone's going to have to learn how to roar."

Emma grinds her teeth. "Oh, piss off," she grumbles before ambling off the stool, coffee in hand.

"And feisty, too," Zelena sing-songs, "make sure to bring that to the bedroom with you. My sister enjoys a challenge." Emma misses the wink and the grimace-turned-eye roll from Granny, the air kiss Zelena gives in return.

"What's up?" She asks breezily when she turns the corner and is facing Regina who's backed against the closest wall. The image strikes her with its familiarity, a different outfit, shorter hair, a coat or was it a jacket? folded over forearms, eyes full of pain and unbearable longing. She takes a sip of her coffee, willing the memory away.

"' _What's up_?' What's up is that you have been ignoring me for the past five minutes and chatting with my _sister_. I do not like being ignored, Emma. Is there something we need to talk about?"

Emma feels her neck grow damp with sweat, an itchy prickle making its way down her spine. Her trench coat feels too heavy, too thick around her shoulders. She really doesn't want to talk about this _here_. "Uh…no? I just didn't see you," she fumbles, cringing at the lameness of the lie.

There's that look, that weight. It sparks something inside of Emma; she feels the sudden, inane urge to laugh, to wrap her arms around Regina and hug her. It startles her so much that she misses the beginning of Regina's reply.

"…and I'd like to think that we are at the level of friendship where you can at least say hello to me when we see each other in public."

Emma scratches at her nose, nodding her head, desperately relieved for the out. "You're right – yes, we are…I'm sorry, I, uh, I shouldn't have been rude like that. Do you, do you want to have breakfast with me?"

Regina blinks a few times, an expression of shock and then confusion passing over her features before she nods slowly, clearing her throat. "Of course," she breathes, looking a little suspicious before it smooths into a soft smile. "I'd love to," she amends.

Emma smiles, a little awkward, wondering if Regina is thinking about last night as fervently as she is. Wondering why she didn't bring it up just now, why she didn't push the subject. Wondering if maybe Regina doesn't remember.

She finds, as she hovers a hand at the small of Regina's back as they both make their way to the corner booth, that she doesn't want that. She doesn't want that at all.

* * *

"Okay, listen. You will not tease me about this, you will not even bring it into a conversation after tonight or I will magically make it so you are bald for the rest of your life."

There's a laugh, full-bodied and pretty again and Emma wonders how the hell the Mills sisters can be so bitchy and alluring at the same. "You're even adorable lobbing threats, Charming. But you have my word, scout's honor. I shan't repeat this to another living soul."

Emma glowers at the screen of her cellphone, the melodramatic antics the eldest Mills can't help but give in to.

"Okay, um…"

But Emma freezes, fingers sliding anxiously through her hair. The moon up above in a sky full of softly glowing stars does little to dwarf her disquiet. When she's about to tell Zelena to forget it and hang up, Zelena speaks.

"Emma…" and her first name sounds misplaced in her mouth, "I know this may seem disingenuous…" there's a small pause, like she's searching for the right words. The softness in the tone surprises Emma, it eases the nervousness in her gut a little, loosens a knot. "Given our past," she settles on, the words sounding a bit strained, "but if this is about my sister, and you're willing to come to _me_ of all people with it, then I truly do promise anything you say to me will not extend any further than this phone call."

Her breath leaves her in a loud whoosh, the knot coming undone completely, and she sags with the freeness of it. She closes her eyes and tilts her head up toward the stars, head thunking against the door of her bug.

"Regina asked me to sleep with her last night and I don't think she remembers a single moment of it," she rasps, the words coming out of her too quickly, clumsily.

There's a stagnant pause, an almost inaudible hitch of breath. Emma's teeth nibble at the inside of her mouth, eyes screwed shut, heart pounding in her ribcage.

"Why wouldn't she remember it?" Zelena asks, a careful note to it.

Emma's free hand curves into a fist before relaxing again. She repeats the action.

"Because she was drunk."

Zelena snorts. "Unless she imbibed the contents of an entire brewery, I don't think her gap in memory is something you should be worrying about."

Emma isn't convinced. "She drank almost an entire bottle of whiskey, Zelena."

"And…?"

Emma sputters, free hand flying out as she takes a step away from the bug. "And that's a lot of fucking alcohol! If she didn't forget then she would have said something to me earlier!"

Zelena scoffs, the sound almost like a reproach. "I thought you knew my sister?"

Emma's head jerks back on her neck, this woman just as efficient at getting under her skin as her aforementioned sister. A speciality that ran deep within the Mills' bloodline it seemed. "I _do_ know her," she grinds out.

"Clearly not as well as you thought," Zelena sniffs, haughty, and Emma regrets calling her instantly.

"You know what, this was a stupid decision. Forget I-"

"Oh, good god, you _are_ the daughter of Snow White, aren't you?"

Emma screws up her face. "How is -"

She hears Zelena mumbling, the word _histrionic_ in there somewhere.

"I am _not_ -"

"At any rate, think about it, Charming."

Emma flares up, white heat flashing across her skin. "Stop interrupting me!"

"Stop being so dense." She continues before Emma can respond. " _Think about it_ ," she reiterates, sounding like she's trying very hard to abate her annoyance, "use that brain of yours, I know you have one. Why on earth would my sister _ever_ willingly talk about something that's made her feel vulnerable, that's made her feel _weak_?"

"I-" but she stops, mind mulling over the words. She...she has a point. She's _right_.

"Oh," Emma breathes, an accident.

" _Oh_ ," Zelena mocks, a bit of that annoyance seeping through. Emma imagines she's rolled her eyes no less than ten times in the last few minutes.

There's another long pause as Emma wonders why the fucking _hell_ she hadn't thought of that, _known_ that, before Zelena speaks again, this time sounding much calmer.

"Just because it's something you think you don't wish to talk about but really do doesn't mean Regina feels the same way."

Emma rubs at her forehead, a little shocked at the perspicacity being shown.

She's a bit _too_ perceptive.

Emma narrows her eyes. "There is no way in hell you got all of that from _observation_ ," she accuses.

A pause. The lack of response in and of itself saturated with guilt.

"Exactly. Spill."

"She's bossy, too," Zelena comments, an evasion.

"Bald head. Forever."

"Oh, alright, alright. Try not to get too excited, it might dislodge that stick permanently stuck up your ass."

She chuckles at the hesitation, Emma far too angry to properly respond. She's half a second away from just ending the call.

"Not even another threat?" She tuts, feigning disappointment, before she sighs. "I may have been listening at the top of the stairs last night."

Emma's jaw drops. "You…" then anger washes over her, tilting her vision red. "She drank herself _stupid_ last night, she wouldn't have _stopped_ , and you were just going to listen from the top of the fucking _stairs_?"

At this, it seems, Zelena finally drops all pretense, amusement gone in an instant. "I would have stopped her if it got to that point," she hisses, sounding deeply offended. _Good_ , Emma thinks. _Not fun when you're on the other end of it, is it_?

"But since you're so _hopelessly_ in love with her and always trailing after her like some sort of timid, hopeful little _puppy_ , it wasn't really necessary, was it?"

Emma _seethes_. "She's my _friend_ ," she says lowly, jaw taut and eyes like fire, unseen, "and I was worried about her. That doesn't make me a timid little puppy, that makes me a fucking decent person. And I'm not...I'm not _in love_ with her," she almost chokes on the words.

Zelena laughs, this one cruel, this one an echo of her days as the Wicked Witch. It sounds discordant here, even after only a few weeks of her trying so hard to shed herself of that facade, it makes something twinge inside of Emma. Like a plea. Like guilt. Like _we know who you are, and who you will always be_.

"You may have been able to convince yourself of that 24 hours ago but I saw you two. More importantly, I saw you when you left," her voice softens here, "I'm not sure at all how we've gotten to this point. Where you can call the woman who murdered the father of your son seeking advice on the woman who cursed you, tried to erase your entire existence, but I'm going to be blunt with you, Emma, and god only knows _why_." There's a beat of silence, as if she needs to collect herself, before she continues again. "I've gone through most of my life not knowing my sister, _despising_ her, wishing her dead, wanting her _miserable_ , to now sharing a home and raising a child with her. You're thick but you're not a complete moron," here Emma huffs indignantly, "and despite your hiccup in intelligence earlier, I think you truly do know my sister better than anyone. She talks about you sometimes, just offhanded comments that I don't really think she means to let slip. She cares a great deal about you, more than she wants to admit. And there's nothing wrong with a few nights of meaningless sex but that's not what you two are to each other."

Emma's in shock by this point, completely frozen with the raw, unexpected display of openness.

She hears Zelena take in a breath, body in a total standstill, rendered only to listen. Every syllable, every letter.

"You _mean_ something to one another and I've spent enough time around the two of you to know that it's always been that way, that it will _continue_ to be that way. It is not my place to tell you this but for the sake of my sister's heart and your own, please do not pursue this. Do not ask questions, do not let hope set roots into that starving heart of yours. Stay with the pirate, find happiness in something that can be _yours_." Her words have started to wobble and Emma remembers that Regina isn't the only one who's lost a true love recently. Her heart constricts, thrumming with sympathy now even as tears blur her own vision.

"Even if she could love you in that way, she wouldn't allow herself. Not now, not after him."

Emma gives a horrible little laugh. "Weren't you the one not even hours ago practically shoving me into Regina's lap?"

Zelena gives another one of her scoffs, the sound eerily similar to one of Regina's. "If you call _that_ shoving you're far more vanilla than I thought. And that's just because I can't resist relentless teasing of a Charming. It's far too fun watching your face turn the shade of a tomato."

"But this isn't me teasing," her voice is somber again, "this is me trying to help someone I...care about."

The words are out before the thought even finishes running through her mind. "What if I loved enough for the both of us?"

Zelena gives a rueful chuckle. "Even you can't be willing enough to submerse yourself into _that_ level of masochism."

Emma bites her bottom lip, willing the tremble in her body away, the iciness of her fingertips, the aching hollowness eating at her insides, forming a yawning chasm.

"I could for her," she says stupidly, blindly, words watery, scratchy.

"You don't even know what you want, Charming. You've only just realized that you've been yearning for something more than friendship, haven't you? She's too fragile and you're too lost. Let it be, Emma."

She almost agrees. Because she's right. And she shouldn't want this anyway, should she? She has Killian. She _loves_ Killian. _Let it be, Emma_.

But there's something pushing at her bones, willing her in the opposite direction. It's that familiarity she felt last night, that wholeness that had inexplicably filled her lungs. It's _maybe I need you_ and the feeling of Regina's hands in her own. It's unwavering belief in a woman who fought so _hard_ for it, who _deserves_ it. It's that one late night in the sheriff's station all those years ago, a secret, a punishment. It's a son that's _theirs_. A family she never knew she could have, a family she never knew she could want so fiercely.

It's fucking _hope_ , and Emma, like an idiot, _clings_ to it.

Zelena may be right. She doesn't know what she wants.

But she does know she doesn't want to _let it be_.

So she doesn't. She won't.

"I can't," she says, and hangs up.

* * *

 ** _I'm soRRY. But seriously, if you're expecting anything other than full-blown angst from me then you haven't learned your lesson. *hands you a flower*_**


End file.
